Question: do you think that the Roman Curia lumps this problem (the scandal)
in with other problems that require just as much attention? Christians in
Asia and Africa are under physical assault, Catholics in Russia and Belarus
are being suppressed, Bishops are kidnapped in Sout America. Are these real
problems just like the abuse of children in America?

I think many of the comments made on Amy Welborn's blog reflect Americanism at its worst. The blog comments cry the Church in America has a problem and the Vatican needs to stop everything else and resolve the problem. The comments also show a consumerist viewpoint that all problems can be taken care of immediately. Maybe I'm wrong but America Catholics make up about 0.6% of total Catholics. Of the 60 million Catholics in the US, a good percentage do not practice the faith.

Yes, I agree what has happened to the children is terrible. The actions of
the priests involved are despicable. The reaction by many bishops and their
staffs are execrable. Yet, I have not seen any recommendation that is totally
just or, if implemented, will prevent similar actions.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic or even cynical but the comments on the blogs I read
do not reassure me that the Church in America will come out stronger as a
result of the crisis. Cardinal Ratzinger voiced some sincere concerns and is
condemned because he hasn't burned anyone at the stake. Go figure.

It may be helpful, and important, to emphasize that Cardinal Ratzinger was not merely commenting: he was responding to a specific question with a specific answer. For all we know, too, either the reporter or the editor trimmed the Cardinal's response for space considerations: I doubt it, but I don't know why it's out of the question, either.

My simple answer to the question is "Yes".

Unfortunately (to say the least) this is a different kind of problem: the very individuals whom we should be able to rely on to solve the problem  bishops and priests  are themselves the problem. I've said it before: why on earth does anybody think that we can rely on Cardinal Law and Cardinal Mahony and the rest of the bunch to solve the problem that they themselves personally played an essential role in creating?

Even if they were gone today, though, the problem isn't going to be solved for a long time. That the rising generation of clergy seems to be on the whole  and I do not mean to be to judgemental: I know most clergy are fine persons doing the best they can do  seems to be on the whole more seriously Christian and more unashamedly Catholic gives me a great deal of hope. That the gray and graying generation of clergy  meaning especially bishops who undeniably failed miserably in their pastoral responsibilities  that it remains firmly ensconced tells me that the fruits of my hope may be a very long time coming.

BTW, I think the comments at Catholic and Enjoying It! are more reasonable. One fellow, though, makes a big deal out of googling 1,350 pages dealing with "protestant clergy sexual abuse scandals". But googling "catholic clergy sexual abuse scandals" comes up with 8,850 pages. Since the problem is, in fact, at least as widespread among Protestants as among Catholics, his evidence actually undermines his claim. I like that. :)

P.S. It's 6 percent, which would be 0.06 as a multiplicand; that is, 1,000,000,000 x 0.06 = 60,000,000.

P.P.S. I agree with Amy's blog yesterday. Maintaining that the press coverage is biased is quite something different than maintaining it's not true or helpful. Horrible deeds cannot be done, or remain unpunished, in the light of day. We have ordained too many damnable bastards  or they have allowed themselves to become damnable bastards after the fact  and we need to expose and get rid of every last one of them. Christian forgiveness is something quite different, too, from the willful stupidity that allows miscreants to remain in positions of authority and influence.

.... What GOOD are journalists if they are oblivious to the conflict of interest that exists when they use sources such as the the UN and Department of State, or locals in countries that kill those who are viewed as traitors, such as Palestinians in the West Bank, Afghans sympathetic to the Taliban, and Iraqis who fear torture or death?

Millions of people around the world do not enjoy the freedoms we take for granted, but our press would rather cover the latest Dem/Repub dust-up than, say, the genocide that is ongoing right now in Zimbabwe, or the Iranian student protests, or the unbelievable hatred that spews from the mouths of the Muslim clerics every single Friday, at mosques not only in the Middle East but the USA and Europe as well.

Apparently, none of these stories rates very highly on the moral compass of the "elite" editors and producers of NYT, WaPo, ABC, NBC, and CBS. They are too busy covering whatever Al Gore is yapping about lately. If this is not a moral failing, on a grand and colossal scale, I don't know what is....

.... For you real journalists out there reading this, Jeff has just described why there are 100,000 blogs out there with writers working for gratis to ask the questions you guys get paid to fail to ask. We're tired of waiting on you....

Chris Matthews interviewed David Rose, contributing editor for Vanity Fair, about an article he wrote in the latest issue:

.... [ROSE:] Now, I donít think there was any country in the world that was more intensely spied upon than Iraq in the 1990s. And itís quite clear from this new analysis, which is being done of the CIAís own reports, the material which the CIA has produced and graded as belonging to its most reliable counterintelligence, itís quite clear from that material that the CIA knew of quite a large number of connections between Iraq and al Qaeda going back 10 years, nearly 100.

Now, as one agency  as one, Iím sorry, administration official told me in reporting this article, in the Cold War, people made very important policy decisions on the basis of four or five intelligence reports. Here we have nearly 100 and yet it seems to be new that thereís actually all this evidence of an Iraq/al Qaeda connection.

So you have to ask why. Well I think itís because for many years the CIA and indeed the State Department have been laboring under the completely mistaken belief that the so-called secular dictator, Saddam Hussein, would not get into bed with an Islamist fundamentalist group, i.e. al Qaeda....

MATTHEWS: Did he tell you of any Iraqi involvement in 9/11?

ROSE: This individual told me in October of last year that the CIA had reports that two of the 9/11 hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah traveled to United Arab Emirates...

MATTHEWS: Right.

ROSE: ... in the months before the 9/11 attacks and met with nine Iraqi intelligence officers. Now he told me that way back, more than 13 months ago, and I have been back to this individual, I would say at least half a dozen times since then, and I said have  do you stand by what you say then  what you said to me then and...